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gay peoples CHRONICLE

Gay Peoples Chronicle

Publisher

Cleveland Gay Peoples Press Associates

VOTE!

On November 5 Cleveland and a number of its suburbs will be voting for local officials, primarily council members. These elections are important, and particularly important for gay people..

Irrational fear of AIDS, and with it, fear of gays continues to mount among the general public, carefully promoted by a coalition of our enemies who see this issue as their opportunity to destroy all the gains we have made since 1960. All gay people, women and men, are at risk from this potential backlash.

In dealing with AIDS, gay people have done much. Given the sorry record of the federal government, we have had to. In the June issue of the Chronicle, Ted Wilson reviewed our accomplishments, in which we can justly take great pride. In the October issue Larry Kolke described the growing signs that a truly united lesbian/ gay community is emerging here. This is also cause for pride, and for hope.

But our testing is not over, and we are

going to be called upon to do much more. As in the past, we will need help from nongays whose sense of justice leads them at least to listen to us, at best to be our allies.

The November 5 election is an opportunity to make sure, through our votes, that our local council members are people who are informed and concerned about AIDS, and about civil rights for lesbians and gays. It is also an opportunity to change our image as a politically apathetic group. The Eleanor Roosevelt Lesbian/Gay Campaign Fund has made endorsements in council races in Cleveland, Cleveland Heights, and Lakewood. These are listed on Page 5. The endorsements are based upon questionnaires sent to candidates, and upon discussions with them about the AIDS crisis, anti-gay violence, and civil rights for lesbians and gays.

Even if you are completely closeted, you can vote as a gay person. You owe this to yourself, and to all of us.

ANTI-GAY PREJUDICE

In September the Cleveland Catholic Diotried to prevent the production of Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for Us by the Chagrin Valley Little Theater, and forced the parochial school teacher cast for the lead to withdraw from it. Since then, controversy over its actions has continued in the Letters section of the Plain Dealer.

The most recent contribution comes from the Rev. Sean J. Donnelly, associate pastor of St. Peter the Apostle Church. Fath-

Donnelly wrote, "Harvard Professor Arthur M. Schlesinger explained it all very well when he said that prejudice against the Catholic Church is 'the deepest bias in the history of the American people.'".

We think Father Donnelly misses the point of the Plain Dealer correspondence. The letters criticizing the Archdiocese were written by persons who identified themselves as products of parochial

schools. Criticism of the hierarchy by lay Catholics might just possibly be called bias against the Church, but that was not what Schlesinger meant.

Anti-Catholic prejudice has had a long and dishonorable history in the United States (although we can't resist pointing

out that it has historically been strongest among the fundamentalist denominations with which the hierarchy is now confortably allied on several issues, including gay rights). We thought the election of John

Kennedy in 1960 pretty much killed it as a significant force.

When the leadership of any denomination takes political action, whether by trying to suppress a dramatic production or prevent the extending of civil rights to gay people, it opens itself to legitimate criticism for these actions.

Granting that anti-Catholic prejudice has been significant among Americans, we must disagree with Schlesinger that it has been the deepest bias. The Chronicle staff, like most of our readers, can easily name a much deeper bias, rife among Father Donnelly's fellow clergy.

As an example, we can quote the Rev. Joseph Moriarty's recent statement to the Plain Dealer. With reference to AIDS, Father Moriarty said, "This disease is transmitted by people who aren't behaving in the way God wants them to behave. Unfortunately, innocent people are getting it. But it's not fair to treat these homos like lepers." Is this compassion?

WILL GAY SEX BE LEGAL?

As we go to press, the New York Times appeared with a story about the decision of the New York State Public Health Counempowering local health officials to close bathhouses and other places where "high-risk sexual activities" occur.

The Times story is not entirely clear about the details and implications of this decision, explicitly undertaken as a move to curb AIDS.

Even within the gay community, opinion the role of bathhouses in facilitating the spread of AIDS is divided. Some leaders have urged their closing. Others argue that men who go to bathhouses for sex will simply congregate in other areas where it will be more difficult to urge safe-sex

practices.

In many respects the most disturbing feature of the Times story centers on the statements by Dr. David Axelrod, the State Health Commissioner, who said "We're not seeking to close establishments. We're seeking to end dangerous sex." He seems to define "dangerous sex" as anal and oral intercourse.

What bothers us particularly is the potential extension of such regulations from places where people gather to engage in these sexual activities to the sexual activities themselves. What, then, happens to the legal status of sodomy laws? Will they be reinstated? And will homosexual sex, in any form, again become illegal in those states that have legalized it?

November 1985

Advisory Board Jerry Bores

Charles Callender Rob Daroff, Bob Downing Karen Giffen, Mark Kroboth Joy Medley, Martha Pontoni Bob Reynolds

Adv

Advertising Manager Joy. Medley

Business Manager Bob Reynolds Circulation Manager Bob Downing

Editor-in-Chief

Charles Callender

Reporters

Charles Callender Catherine Clark, Rob Daroff Dora Forbes, Joanne Frustaci Mark Kroboth Casimir Kuczinski Sebastian Melmoth Martha Pontoni

Photographer and Cartoonist Rob Daroff

Columnists Peter Beebe, Shana Blessing Larry Kolke, Jym Roe Julian Wilde

Production Staff

James Amerson, Rod Caldwell Charles Callender Rob Daroff, Joanne Frustaci Mark Kroboth

Circulation Staff Ray Davis, Bob Downing Jin Price, Nick Santone Youngstown: Bill Smith Columbus: News of the Columbus Gay & Lesbian Community

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